Wednesday, November 07, 2007

A great interview with Reagan from 1975, his explanation of the toxicity of federal funding for education is so clear:

At first, there was a great opposition to most of the Federal revenues that are going to education on the part of many educators. Once the money was there, however, it was like the farmer who went into the woods and came back with the wagon loads of wild pigs. When they asked him how he had done it–they’d been wild for a hundred years–he said, "I built a fence and I put corn down and fed them, and they got used to eating the corn there, so l extended the fences’s sides and finally I had an enclosure and I corralled them." He said, "If I can get them to take food from me, I’ll own them." And this is what really happened with Federal aid to education. You know, the Federal Government could have done it differently if the Federal Government did not at the same time want control.

BONUS:From page 421 of Robert Novak's autobiography The Prince of Darkness (on gold):

I asked Reagan: "What ever happened to the gold standard? I thought you supported it."

"Well," the president began and then paused (a ploy he frequently used to collect his thoughts), "I still do support the gold standard, but--"At that point, Reagan was interrupted by his chief of staff. "Now, Mr. President," said Don Regan, "we don't want to get bogged down talking about the gold standard."

"You see?" the president said to me, with palms uplifted in mock futility. "They just won't let me have my way."